IQQ 



Le Centurion and its author. He is young, his scene is Quebec, and his time to-day. If 

 he would argue less he would convince more; and perhaps he might then rise into true 

 art with a story that tells its own tale. 



Le Pere Beaude (b. 1870), a Dominican whose nom de plume is Henri d'Arles, writes 

 remarkably keen and beautifully expressed appreciations of aesthetic subjects in 

 Propos d' Art (1903), Pastels (1905), and L'Ame Antique (1907). 



The death of Sir James Le Moine (1825-1912) was a loss to both French-Canadian 

 and Anglo-Canadian literature of the commemorative kind. Historical writings have 

 been too numerous even for the barest mention. A Review of Historical Publications 

 relating to Canada is issued annually by the University of Toronto. 



The chief new works on French-Canadian literature, to be added to the Histoire de la 

 Literature Canadienne (1874) of Edmond Lareau (1848-1890), are the &udes (1904) and 

 Nouvelles Etudes (1907) of Charles ab der Halden, a Frenchman (b. 1872). The local pecul- 

 iarities of the language have engaged the attention of many scholars. In addition to the 

 handy \itt\edossairefranco-cariadien (1880) of Oscar Dunn (1844-1885), a much larger and 

 more important volume has been produced by N. . Dionne (b. 1848) in Le Parler Populaire 

 des Canadiens-Frangais (1909); and a still larger work is now in course of publication through 

 the Bulletin du Parler Frangais au Canada. (W. WOOD.) 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



American literature continues to impress " by its mass rather than its details." 

 The sheer bulk of output increases steadily from year to year; but Americans are appre- 

 ciably raising that high level of " average workmanship " from which William Dean 

 Howells expects so much. To less sanguine observers, less will seem to be promised 

 by the multiplication of literary craftsmen. The disheartening thing to them will be 

 the vast number of books now published which are almost good or fairly good. It re- 

 mains to be seen whether America will prove what the world hitherto has not been able 

 to prove that works of genius are more likely to springVrom a soil of enlightened medioc- 

 rity than from the wayside. 



Unless in the field of dramatic writing, little fresh vigour has manifested itself be- 

 tween 1909 and 1913. A number of the older figures have passed from the stage. Most 

 notable of them was'Samuel Langhorne Clemens (" Mark Twain ") (1835-1910), chief 

 exponent of the American joke, and possessor of a strain of genius which never quite 

 adequately expressed itself. William Vaughn Moody (1869-1910) was among the hand- 

 ful of genuine poets whom the America of later years may justly claim, and was by way of 

 becoming a dramatist of unusual power. Sydney Porter (" O. Henry ") (1867-1910) 

 was the most versatile of recent American short story writers and humorists. David 

 Graham Phillips (1867-1911) had a rude force and a conscious but sincere Americanism 

 which differentiated him from the mob of novelists who write with skill. By the death 

 of Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911) America lost the last important survivor 

 of the New England group which half a century ago gave American literature its first 

 wide recognition abroad. 



Colonel Higginson carried into this century the tradition and practice of the familiar 

 essay. The Atlantic Monthly, in which most of his work was printed, is now almost the 

 only surviving repository of that obsolescent form. In the hands of Agnes Repplier 

 (b. 1857) and Samuel McChord Crothers (b. 1857) it has lost nothing of it's flexibility and 

 inherent charm, but it has lost its wider audience for the moment, at least. Frank Moore 

 Colby (b. 1865) is the wittiest of American writers of those little leaders which, on their 

 smaller scale, retain something of the function of the familiar essay. Mr. Howells still 

 contributes informal papers to the " Easy Chair " of Harper's Magazine. In the more 

 formal and extended essay William Crary Brownell (b. 1851) and Paul Elmer More 

 (1864) are preeminent. Whatever may be true of the light essay, there is no doubt of the 

 steady demand for careful criticism. In such work the lifting of the average quality 

 is of undoubted importance, and it is a hopeful sign that among the rank and file of 

 newspaper reviewers there is a growing tendency to take their work seriously. 



1 See E. B. i, 831 et seq. 



